


The Boy Without Fear

by ScootsMcGee



Category: DCU, Gotham (TV), Green Lantern - All Media Types
Genre: Bisexual Hal Jordan, Crushes, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Grief/Mourning, Hal/Bruce is only in the final chapter, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Or reciprocated in the final chapter at least
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2018-12-03 20:43:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11540094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScootsMcGee/pseuds/ScootsMcGee
Summary: The Gotham AU kid!fic for Green Lantern that no one has ever asked for.OrIn Which Hal is fucked up, Bruce is fucked up and wow those first Justice League meetings are going to be awkward.After Martin Jordan's death, his wife takes their three children back to her home town. Which just happens to be Gotham City. Predictably this ends with two of the children getting involved with the gangs and villains of Gotham. Planes seem a lot safer now don't they Jessica?





	1. Chapter 1

It had been a few months since Martin Jordan had died.

This was not really a surprise since on a multiversal scale it was just one of those things. Just like how the billionaire parents would almost always get shot down if they went into the alley, like how the amount of people trying to assassinate elderly lighthouse keepers apparently quadrupled around the time their sons were taking over foreign thrones, how space pods from Sector 2813 had a tendency to crash in Kansas and not in Soviet Russia. Test pilots tended to hand their flight jackets to their sons immediately before crashing planes into the Californian desert. It was one of those things that happened.

Of course, if you were looking at it from the perspective of a cosmic being, the knowledge of the fact this happened would go a long way to explaining exactly how the Jordan family ended up exactly as fucked up as it did.

Jessica Jordan, the wife of this deceased test pilot, could hardly stand to live in the place where her husband had grown up anymore. More than that, the place where his ancestors going back hundreds of years had grown up. Normally a parent would not remove their children from their friend groups, from their family, but Jessica had had enough of California, had had enough of Larry trying to make good with her. She needed to get away, no matter what anyone else said.

She had been born in Gotham, and even though she had heard from her old friends that Gotham wasn’t safe anymore, hadn’t been since the Waynes had died, sometimes she missed the Jewish community that she had grown up in. Besides, Gotham had precisely no Air Force bases than ten-year-old children would be able to break into while her back was turned. While she was a stickler for safety, she ranked supervillains slightly below planes on the danger scale. She absolutely would not entertain the possibility that the issue was less the safety of her children and more how much they reminded her of Martin.

Being trapped in a car with three boys for several days almost made her rethink the entire plan, though.

As the car pulled into the dingy city, she took a glance back towards her three sons for the first time in hours.

The youngest son, James, was currently asleep. He was eight years old, such a good boy and she knew that he would settle down into life in a new city with ease, he was bright and knew how to keep his head down. Or at least he did when a certain someone wasn’t busy being a bad influence.

The oldest son, Jack, was reading a letter, she hadn’t been aware that he was receiving love letters yet, but he was studious and on track to being able to attend an Ivy League college in two years. After which he would enter Harvard Law and eventually become a District Attorney. It was all planned out, he would have two children, Jessica couldn’t be prouder of him. It made perfect sense that girls would be after him, he had a bright future and he was safe. What girl wouldn’t want that?

Her eyes flicked to Trouble after she carefully avoided a car swerving into her lane. She almost wished they hadn’t.

Trouble seemed to be attempting to bite his older brother’s ear off. A deft hand was all that all that was keeping a shower of blood from ruining the upholstery and her from having to spend two hours of the day waiting in the emergency room.

“Harold!” Jessica snapped, and the two boys threw themselves apart as if they had been scalded.

“Jack stole my letter!” The boy didn’t even have the good grace to sound repentant and she noted with an inward sigh that he was wearing the ridiculous jacket again. It came down past his knees.

“You will make other friends in Gotham,” Jack said, making a face as he read over one passage in particular. “You should let it go quickly, like ripping off a band aid.”

“William isn’t a _friend_!” Came the inevitable snap, as Harold started trying to snatch the letter back.

“I should hope not,” the older boy was much taller and held the paper just out of reach. “He’s creepy, you could do much better in the friend department.”

Harold snarled, flinging his seatbelt off and attempting to climb his older brother like a tree. “He is not creepy! He’s just- he’s just lonely!”

Jessica did not particularly like the boy who her middle son had met at her husband’s funeral, Jack was correct in his description, although she didn’t feel like a thirty-year-old woman should be referring to a child as creepy.

There was a bigger problem here though.

_William isn’t a **friend**._

Unbidden, Jessica suddenly remembered years ago, one of her husband’s friends dying. He had been sick and in pain, and Martin had held his hand while he died.

She had asked Martin later how he’d met his friend, and had gotten a disconcerting response.

“He wasn’t a friend.”

As a straight woman, she shared her desire to not date a bisexual man with a lot of her compatriots and had put all concerns about her husband at the back of her mind, where she couldn’t examine them.

But as she looked at her son now, she felt a wave of nausea rising in her stomach. Snatching the letter from Jack’s hands, she threw it out of the car window.

That lifestyle wasn’t safe.

She had to keep Harold safe.

* * *

 

Oliver was staring at Bruce’s notes, and it was starting to rankle.

Actually, that one was a lie.

It had started to rankle twenty minutes ago.

Now he was starting to get upset.

“Oliver.” He said, snapping his book shut. “You are aware that you are a year older than me, and thus learned the theories of the Ionian philosophers months ago. Correct?”

Oliver made a concerted effort to pop his bubblegum right in Bruce’s ear at that. Bruce barely contained the urge to smack him with his heavy text book.

Bruce had spent the two years after his parents’ death relatively peacefully, at least in contrast to this, but one day a few months ago, Oliver Queen had come barrelling back into his life (they’d first met at a banquet his parents had taken him to when he was eight), put an arm around Bruce’s shoulders and dragged him off to some diner in downtown Gotham. It hadn’t even had a health certificate.

It probably said something about him that he found training to be a vigilante to be more peaceful than having to deal with someone wanting to be his friend.

“So,” Oliver started, apparently oblivious to Bruce’s newfound desire (or possibly returned, he remembered having a similar urge this morning) to push him out of the nearest window, and Bruce had to thank whichever universal power had taken enough pity on him to make it so that he only had to deal with one of these idiots. “Tommy was saying that he wanted another fight at Gotham Academy. Next Tuesday.”

Gotham Academy was the second private school in Gotham. Although Anders Preparatory Academy was considered the premier one, one that students from across the country were involved in. Hence Bruce suddenly having to deal with the annoyance of Oliver Queen in his life. Gotham Academy was somewhat more affordable for the members of Gotham society who were not even millionaires, and actually offered several scholarships for each grade. It prioritized academics more than money. Obviously, what this amounted to in practice was that the students of the two schools hated each other. The students of Anders Preparatory Academy regarded those at Gotham Academy as Nouveau Riche upstarts, while the Gotham Academy students regarded those attending Bruce’s school as snobs who couldn’t change a lightbulb without calling their butlers.

Naturally, it was the kind of thing that Bruce hadn’t cared in the slightest about since his parents had died, and he had been somewhat surprised to find that Oliver found the entire thing annoying too.

Actually, the only reason he cared at all was that there _were_ dangerous people attending Gotham Academy, and the last thing anyone needed was Anderson Crowne being stabbed by the son of the head of the Russian mob. Again.

Someone needed to stop the idiots.

“So then I said to Tony ‘Don’t steal rolls’” Oliver was saying.

“Oliver are you-” Bruce started. “Are you quoting Anna Karenina at me?”

“You weren’t listening.” That was a pout. Bruce thought about reminding Oliver that he was the older boy here again.

“No, I’m just surprised that you’ve read a book,” Bruce stated blandly.

“The first twenty chapters at least.” Oliver was grinning. “Come on. You know you want to help me. You know you want to get revenge against him.”

Bruce refrained from pointing out that twenty chapters of Anna Karenina was not that many pages in, and thus reading twenty chapters was not that great of a feat.

“Who has Tommy got his sights on?” He asked finally.

* * *

 

“I get that you have some ridiculous lofty goals and have probably been wanting something like this since you were in diapers.” Hal was swinging his legs back and forth as the lounged on Jack’s bed. “Because you are completely lame by the way.”

He had snagged the pudding from his brother’s lunch and had the spoon stuck in his mouth. Two flavors. Vanilla and chocolate at the same time. Jackpot.

“It is seven o’clock in the morning, Hal,” Jack looked completely done with him already.

“But see,” Hal continued, he never really paid that much attention to Jack anyway. “What I don’t get is why I can’t just go to PS28 like Jimbo gets to.”

He dropped the empty pudding cup on the bed and Jack picked it up with a sigh. He tossed it towards the trash can but it bounced off the rim. Instead of ruining his dignity further by picking it up, Jack fell onto the bed next to his brother.

“Because Gotham Academy has its first classes at your age, and fifth grade is when the public school kids in Gotham start dealing drugs. I don’t get why you needed to steal my pudding.”

“Mine’s butterscotch, I’ll trade you. I know how much you like butterscotch.”

“I hate butterscotch, Hal.”

“That’s why I offered.” His brother was laughing and Jack decided right then that he was going to cut him out when they were adults. “But do you think that Mom’s heard the rumors about boarding school?” Hal asked, in a much smaller voice suddenly. He almost never spoke in a smaller voice. “Don’t think that she’d be much into that.”

“The rumors that if you send your kids to boarding school you don’t have to deal with their bullshit all week? I think that’s rather the point in your case.”

Bruce was pouring over a book when Alfred came in.

He had the perfect plan.

All he needed to do was get out of school by the age of 14, and then he would be free.

Free to study parkour under masters in Paris. Free to apprentice himself to the world’s greatest detective. Free to learn sleight of hand from the magician Giovanni Zatara in Las Vegas.

He’d realized long ago that attempting to complete his education in the normal manner would merely take time away from learning the skills that might actually be useful to him. If he started to learn all he needed to at the age of 21 when he graduated college, he would already be way past his prime when he finished training.

“Master Queen to see you, sir.”

Bruce barely looked up as Oliver stepped into the room. “I talked to you two days ago. What do you want?”

Ollie snagged his pastry before he could do anything to stop him.

“Will you jump into my grave that quickly?”

“Oh! I’m sorry Master Wayne!” Came the faux horrified response. “Luckily I bring a peace offering.” He slid a file across the desk.

At this point, it probably bore mentioning that one of the boys in Bruce’s grade attempted to work as some kind of information broker. He was the fifth son of a prominent mafioso in the city and as such had no real way of gaining the prestige in the organization, any jobs that could help him gain the respect of the family were quickly snapped up by his older brothers. Naturally, Bruce hated him and could most likely find any information that he was selling within a few hours. Oliver, being Oliver, had no such issues and would cheerfully walk up to him and hand him a hundred just to see if any girls were “putting out”. It was ridiculous.

It should also bear mentioning that when this boy graduated high school and attempted to find work as an actual information broker, he was promptly shot to death by the Gotham mob. 7 bullets in the chest, the police report said.

“He says that Rivera has picked up a new buddy, some kid named Jordan. Apparently Jewish.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes at that.

“I- you do realise that I can translate slur, right?”

Bruce decided to studiously ignore that. “Is he any real threat, this Jordan?”

“Apparently Rivera was joking about making him his _consigliere_?”

Incidentally, while Bruce’s school had some children who were related to (particularly successful) mobsters, Gotham Academy was rife with them. There was Rivera, obviously. Tanaka, who was well known as the son of a shingiin in the Yakuza. Pertuz: In line to take over the Columbian mob. Ivanovich: Russian mob. Countless.

Bruce kept tabs on all of them, well aware that they could graduate to being his future enemies at any moment. He logged their weaknesses, just in case he needed to refer to them in the future.

* * *

 

Hal Jordan was a popular kid.

Well okay, he had to admit that that was entirely based on his life in Coast City.

In Coast City, a kid with a bright smile and a good sense of humor would get at least six people who liked being around him.

But Gotham was weird.

This school apparently had a detective club, for fuck sake, and to make that even worse there was a rumor that they’d actually stumbled onto a few actual real life crimes.

He was fairly certain that the kid behind him was the leader of his own gang. At eleven. Rivera, his name was. Rivera was the only person in this school who really paid any attention to him.

Hal didn’t look back as a rolled up ball of paper smacked him on the back of the head and dropped the ball onto the desk of the girl next to him.

Sybil Silverlock, he thought her name was.

She opened it up and shook her head.

“No Harold. I think this is for you.” No chance of fobbing it off on someone else, then.

_Meet me at the station, after school._ The note said, sending off ominous waves.

* * *

 

At this point, the differences between Gotham City and Coast City should be noted.

Gotham City was already three tiers deep in its messed-up situation. The mob ruled the streets, supervillains were already starting to come crawling out of the woodwork, and yes there were a few people who seemed to have super powers running around.

Coast City, by contrast, wouldn’t have its first alien contact for another fourteen years, had pretty much no supervillains hanging around (unless you particularly wanted to count Carol Ferris and William Hand, but there isn’t any particular reason why you would, they were eleven) and Bito Wladon was still in Eastern Europe, so he wasn’t exactly causing trouble.

In short Coast City was just a normal city, so maybe a kid from Coast City could be forgiven for making mistakes based on what they would have done in their home city.

Hal Jordan was not making such a mistake.

Somewhere in his head, he had made a decision. Whether it was conscious or subconscious didn’t really matter. The fact of the matter was that he had realized that the thought of speaking to the boy made him feel fear.

Fear was something he hated.

Fear was something he never wanted to feel.

So as a result, he merely decided to go and talk to the boy. To force that fear down until it stopped popping up.

Later he would realise that it had been a bad decision.

Later he would be trapped in a building with no way out, and a sack filled with files on his shoulder.

But the actions of fourteen-year-old Hal Jordan held no relevance to eleven-year-old Hal Jordan.

His thing was willpower. Not foresight.

* * *

 

The biggest difference between Coast City and Gotham City, Hal thought, was the cultural differences. Also, the lack of Boba anywhere to be found in this New Jersey hellhole.

So, he sighed and pushed a straw into his iced coffee.

“I have to admit that I find you interesting.” Came the voice of the boy beside him, currently drinking an oddly sugary concoction.

Hal wasn’t sure whether that was scary or not. You could read a lot about people from how they drank their coffee. Someone who took it black was just your standard tough guy, not interesting at all. But the syrup mixed with the scary aura emanating from the guy? Definitely the type of person who would stab you with a pen for a laugh.

“You transfer into the school from the West Coast. In the middle of the term, no less. Then you absolutely ignore my advances for most of the day. It was quite frankly infuriating.”

Hal hummed, indicating that he was listening, even though he was really watching the people around them.

“But honestly. The reason I’m most interested is… I saw you last night.”

Hal actually stopped at that. Looking at his companion for the first time. He was wearing sunglasses, so his facial expression was actually pretty implacable.

He’d snuck out of the house last night. He’d wanted to get away from his mother, but also he’d wanted to find a phone box to call William, let him know what had happened. Maybe set up some kind of phone call itinerary. Most of the phone boxes in a block radius had been smashed up by street gangs, or had glass and used condoms inside. One actually had a couple having sex right in front of him. Eventually, he’d found one outside an Italian restaurant.

The phone call had been the standard “Will, I’m missing you” “Hey Hal, I’m watching a war documentary” followed by a long description of the effects of mustard gas on a human. “So, I’ll call you in two days if you want.” It was just the voice he wanted, some semblance of normalcy.

That was when he’d heard the noise.

“Was that… a gunshot?” He asked the empty air around him.

Obviously, he was scared.

Obviously, that had made him force himself to edge closer to the noise.

He peered around the corner just in time to see a man stepping back into the restaurant, leaving a body bleeding out in an alleyway.

What should he do?

William would tell him to touch the body. But Hal didn’t really want to do that. Wait did the fact that he didn’t want to mean that he should? He moved further into the alleyway, some stupid desire to prove that he wasn’t a coward flowing through him and reached a hand toward the body.

Something had clattered against the wall just then, and he’d fled into the night.

“Yeah, that was me.” The redheaded boy next to him was saying it with what seemed to be a lot of pride.

Hal tilted his head. “That was you?”

“Don’t think Uncle Serge is the type not to kill people who come across him just because they’re kids.”

Hal felt a shiver of fear at that.

So obviously he ended up going round the kid’s house for tea.

* * *

 

The fight between the Prep School and the Academy kids had ended up going predictably.

The Prep School kids had made a lot of bluster but had ended up scattering pretty quickly after the big guns had come out.

One of the boys was crying, Tanaka had apparently stabbed him through the hand with a knife, and someone seriously needed to start searching those boys before they actually hurt someone.

Oliver had gone to help that boy, apparently keeping some bandages on his person at all times. Which… honestly, with Oliver, was probably the best possible turn of events. He tended to get injured regularly, just from his own stupid decisions.

Bruce was free to corner his two targets.

“This ends.” It was the beginnings of a growl that in the future, would make criminals run for cover, but right now. Right now, it was coming out of a skinny fourteen-year-old, and Rivera would have no chance of losing.

“I think you’ll find it was you faggots who started this.” Came an answering growl. Sharp teeth ground together.

“You making a grab for power, I will not have the next generation of the mafia…”

“He’s a friend you little psycho!”

Bruce opened his mouth to tell the boy to please kindly cut back on the slurs because it was pathetic and didn’t impress anyone.

The slam of the second-floor window just distracted him. The yelled, “Get away from my brother!”

As did the fluttering of what appeared to be an incredibly oversized flight jacket. He was having serious concerns about what was considered acceptable to wear at Gotham Academy.

Mostly the thing that stopped him from voicing that particularly biting remark was the fact that he was kicked in the face a moment later.

That was the story of how an eleven-year-old broke the boy who would be the Dark Knight’s nose with a sneak attack.

That kind of portend for the future of a relationship almost never happens.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... yeah, I'm sorry that this one took a while, I was planning to have a much better update schedule.

“So, then Uncle Titus bought me a surfboard and Mom freaked out,” the brown-haired boy as saying, it felt like this part of the story was somewhat less relevant than the part where he had been describing how he had broken onto the airfield of a family friend, climbed onto the roof of a hanger and proceeded to jump from the roof onto a flagpole, but then nobody else in the room knew the specifics of his home life. “The next day we’re all packed into the car. I have no idea what was going through her head when she did it…”

Oliver had stolen all of Bruce’s food again (willpower wasn’t his strongest emotion) and Bruce would lean over to chastise him, but he was distracted by what was clearly the bigger issue here.

“Why are you in my house?!”

As could be expected, Oliver had called his butler to pick him up, and, as also was pretty much an inevitability. The question was why the person who had done this to him in the first place had decided to invite himself along.

Bruce tried to ignore how the boy looked like he had been the designated puppy in the puppy kicking parade and Bruce had attended while wearing his stylish new studded steel toed boots. He did not want to be guilted here. Especially as he’d been the only person here who’d been kicked literally instead of merely being kicked allegorically.

“I felt guilty.” A pout. How dare he? Did he think that Bruce would be so easily…?

“Would you like me to hold an ice pack on your face again?” Jordan was saying, before taking a long gulp from his mug. “Man, Alfred makes the _best_ honey tea!”

Amazing how the boy seemed so taken with the gruff, ex-military butler, despite only having met him two hours ago. The fact that he couldn’t even be ingratiating for more than five minutes was less so. It was infuriating.

“Nah, you’d better not, you clearly have no idea what you’re doing, I walked into the room and thought you were trying to smother him to death,” Oliver broke into peals of laughter out of that, any distrust he might have had for the boy disappearing as soon as he decided that he was funny. Ollie sent a sly glance in his friend’s direction. “Not that I could really blame you on that one.”

“I’m gonna ask him for the recipe,” Jordan continued, apparently having forgotten entirely about the pain he had caused Bruce after a period of about… six seconds.

Bruce wondered if this was what having a younger brother felt like, and felt truly glad for the first time in his life that he didn’t have to put up with one daily.

He was so distracted that he didn’t notice the movement beside him. It was at that point that Jordan had apparently decided to renew his attempt to smother Bruce to death with an ice pack.

Where the devil was Alfred?

Oliver had eventually left to go back to his own home, which was a penthouse apartment in the middle of the city, so really it would have been easier for him to not have bothered coming out to Bruce’s place. Really, they were going to have a serious talk one of these days.

He offered the younger boy a ride in the taxi but he seemed to be putting off going home for some reason. Bruce’s working theory was that he was trying to see how much rich people food (as Hal put it himself) he can put into his mouth before he went back to the life where he would have to save for a year to afford it.

“So,” Bruce closed his eyes, maybe if he ignored the boy long enough he would eventually learn to shut up. No luck so far, but it was always worth trying. “What’s with the clothes? All sweaters and blazers, is that what you guys wear in Gotham? How much could you sue me for if I stretched it?” Jordan tugs on the sweater, as if to punctuate the last part.

“I don’t know. Do you all wear tie dye shirts and snap backs in Southern California?”

“Damn…” he got a low whistle in response to that. “You are decidedly more sassy than I expected. Do you treat everyone like that or is it just us peasants that get special treatment?”

“Sassier. Aren’t you meant to be in fifth grade? And watch your language, or I’ll sue you for the constant obscenity instead.”

Hal carefully licked all the chocolate off his fingers as he lounged in Bruce’s chair. He wasn't looking at Bruce anymore. Bruce was starting to wonder if he has ADHD.

“What’s that?” He said, climbing over the chair to go and look at something. Definitely ADHD.

Bruce followed after him as quickly as he possibly could, barely managing to catch the 200-year-old vase that he managed to knock over by prodding at it.

“ _That_ is more money than you could ever pay back in your life, and since you are too annoying to even contemplate using as a servant please refrain from _touching_ anything.”

By some miracle of God, that was the point that the chiming of the door indicated that someone had finally come to rescue him from his own personal demon.

“Aw, shit,” Hal breathes. “Any chance of a sleepover?”

Moments after the younger boy was dragged down the yard, complaints and yelps of pain drifting back up towards the house continually, Bruce returned to the study.

It was still littered with the carnage of the night. Oliver, despite it not being his house, had commandeered the food. All of the food in the kitchen. The Jordan boy, seemingly enamored with a cool older teen and by the looks of it a bit too gullible for his own good anyway, had gone along with it without a moment’s thought.

Bruce picked up the game system that the younger boy had been showing off to Oliver, the game inside being some nonsense about meta-animals and gyms? Bruce hadn’t really been paying that much attention. If he was feeling charitable he might have said that the system being left here was part of a ploy to see him again, but the kid was probably just that forgetful. He didn’t seem like the type that was good at making plans.

“I know that you’re there.” He said, seemingly to an empty room, but he could actually sense the presence of a person hiding behind the curtain.

“Your new friend looks cute,” The voice said matter-of-factly. It sounded very pleased with itself for whatever reason.

Bruce only scowled at the voice, he was tired, his patience with people had snapped three hours ago and worst of all his attempt to rest his hand on the back of the sofa resulted in it coming away sticky. Which of the interlopers had been drinking orange soda? Had everyone but him been raised by wolves?

“When we first met, you didn’t have any friends at all.” Selina was saying. “I almost thought you couldn’t smile at all.”

“Queen won’t leave,” Bruce grunted.

“Bruce,” for once Selina actually sounded quite serious. “He’s a kid. What is he? Ten years old, maybe eleven at most? You can’t let him get involved, you can’t let him find out about anything. Ten year olds are so desperate for adventure that they’ll jump on the first sign of mystery. They assume that they can handle this stuff.”

“Enid Blyton owes the world a great debt.” Bruce deadpanned.

“Who’s that?”

“She’s… no never mind,” He shook his head, it was pointless to explain so much for one bad joke.

* * *

 

Hal’s bag was stuffed with burgers.

He was getting the feeling that this new friendship was less of a friendship and more Rivera the Younger needing a lackey.

The plan was that one of them kept the burgers in his bag and the other kept the money in his bag. Apparently, that meant that no one could prove that one of them wasn’t just into eating 50 hamburgers for lunch. Hal thought that the school faculty was smart enough to track down the only person who really talks to him if he actually did get caught.

Well he wasn't exactly up on his business studies, because luckily we do not yet live in a world which teaches that to kids in elementary school, but he kind of got the feeling that the entire thing would be down the shitter the second the older students convince the faculty to let them go out at lunch. So… maybe by Friday?

He plopped one down on Silverlock’s desk before whoever was teaching math remembered that he had a class to teach and stopped smoking behind the bike sheds.

“Here. A present.”

Hal could feel the burning gaze of his new bff on the back of his head, about three seconds before he felt the burning kick of his foot against his ass.

Hal ignores it, leaning in closer.

“Hey Sybil, I’ve been wondering…”

Another kick hit his ass. Then another. Jesus Christ, it was almost as if he was sounding out ‘stop flirting with chicks and losing me money’ on his posterior.

“Are you free after school? I haven’t… really gotten to know anybody in town?” He wasn't particularly sure why the last part comes out as a question

The strange girl tilted her head a little, seeming to gaze right through him for a second. Then:

“I should probably agree before you have to explain that bruising pattern to the school nurse.”

Somehow, three hours later, after blowing more money than they really should have at an arcade (which Hal was totally going to make a note of, there was a little hidey hole that a small child could definitely sleep in to avoid having to go home at night) they ended up at the Rivera family restaurant.

While they were waiting for an inhuman amount of cakes and pastries, because they were at the age where that was a much bigger concern than savory food, and anyone who had tasted Italian cakes couldn’t really blame them for that, Hal took a long look around the restaurant.

There were a lot of people eating in suits, and he couldn’t really tell whether or not they were legitimate businessmen or ‘legitimate businessmen’. Of course, it was freaking obvious that this was some kind of hub for illegal activity, at any minute someone would start a game of Russian Roulette and… he wasn’t exactly sure why that was the first thing he imagined happening in a place like this.

His eyes stopped at a familiar face, and he broke out into a broad grin as he sauntered over to the older boy.

“Heeeeeeeey Jackie,” he started off, about to ask whether he should be reporting him for working as a waiter, Mom probably wouldn’t like that, even if it was legal. When had that happened?

That was when he noticed that his brother was arguing with a woman, a very beautiful woman, but her hand was clenched around his wrist and hey, what kind of brother would he be if he let an adult woman push his (almost an adult) older brother around.

The thought that she might be a mobster did cross his mind but really, when would a thought like that ever stop him, he ducked underneath his brother’s arm.

“Hey, leave him alone, he just works here.”

“Hally!” Jack’s voice was oddly high pitched, like someone just reached between his legs and squeezed. Hell, maybe someone had. Things were getting pretty intense over here.

Mismatched eyes met his own, and it was obvious that their owner was looking him over, wondering if he had the chance to ever be useful to her, and it was also obvious that if things weren’t decided in his favor he was going to be in a pile of deep shit.

“Of course,” the woman said, a calculating smile on her face “Forgive my manners,” a finger traces its way down his arm. “But a smarter child would be more respectful, **follow my instructions** , and stay with his friends.”

He’s frozen in place, the middle one had sounded different but…

She was speaking again. “Why don’t you head back, it looks like they’re finishing everything up without you.” His legs start moving without him telling them to do anything, and take him back to the table.

“Well.” He said to no one, “That was kind of cool.”

* * *

 

Let us again disrupt the narrative to dispense an important fact: that fact being that Hal Jordan had always had a bit of an attraction to scary people, for example, he first really fell for Carol when he saw her dangling a pilot over her balcony and again when the same thing happened when he was Spectre. Carol dangled a lot of people over balconies. It was really hot.

Later in his adulthood had embarked on a relationship with a certain alien CO, which had ended with him being tortured, abused and having had a cosmic fear entity shoved into his head, but apparently, that had not been enough to entirely shake the fetish.

Maybe it was this that made him a little too curious about the woman, or maybe it was just that Jack yelled at him about it all the way home. What kind of younger brother wouldn't disregard all of his older brother's warnings

* * *

 

“...Completely insane?!” One of the boys in the group was shouting.

Alan ran a hand down his burgundy tie, he was on his way to a meeting with the head of Wayne Enterprises, perhaps it would be possible for him to pay a meeting to the young boy who was technically in charge, he barely even noticed the gaggle of kids bickering on the sidewalk.

That was, of course, until the Starheart started going crazy as he walked past them.

What the Hell?

Sure, as a mystical entity it did offer a minor form of precognition, but it was always minor stuff, it had never…

His eyes met with one of the boys’ own and he got a sudden flash… of a green armchair hovering in front of a building, and two idiots smirking at him and Jay.

Well then, this only ever happened in Gotham. Not for the first time he missed Metropolis. At least it was safe.

He put it completely out of his mind immediately afterward. It wasn't anything world ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, I included Alan because he lives in Gotham in the comics, and also becomes much much more relevant in the future.  
> Seriously my explanation for him is much better than my explanation for Sonar which is basically: I like the lamest Green Lantern villain. Deal with it.
> 
> Other than those two I'll try to keep the GL characters to a minimum. Well done. We have successfully avoided the yandere Black Hand ending.


	3. Chapter 3

The September morning that Hal wakes up too is oddly cold and wet, he can feel drizzles of rain flying through the open window and onto his skin. Back in Coast City he had had a habit of watching the city go to bed at night, leaving the window open. Sometimes he had left the window open so that he could sneak out, which had been something that Marty had encouraged more than a few times.

The memory of his father still left him with an odd emptiness, in particular, this one memory that only they had shared, the time when his father had escaped from the house in the dead of night with Hal in tow, driven out to the Air Force base, and bribed a security guard to let them take a joyride to a plane. Well, the memory had been a good one to _Hal_ at least.

Oddly enough, he could probably be described as a slightly more mature version of Martin Jordan, but that probably said more about his father than it did about him. It wasn't that he was above taking people out for joyrides in planes, it actually struck him as quite a good idea for a date. Maybe he tried to emulate his father too much, because even though he recognized that his obsession with planes was hurting his family, he didn't want to stop.

Sudden sounds hit him, except they don't sound like the sounds of two boys fighting when there isn't an adult around to stop them (he's sure that his mother will be at work for most of the day too) and it's coming from entirely the wrong direction anyway.

There’s a ruckus coming from outside and with a groan he forces himself out of the bed, bare feet hitting the hard wood floor of his bedroom.

He rubs his bleary eyes and stares out into the fog, or is it smog? How’s a dude supposed to tell the difference anyway.

Outside, and it takes him a moment to recognise it (he’s a plane guy more than he is a car guy) is the expensive Rolls Royce his uncle had been desperate to buy, but of course it was too expensive even for him. Standing by the car is the rich boy from yesterday, which he figures explains everything. Except no, really, it actually explains nothing. What the _Hell_ is he doing outside Hal's run down walk up apartment?

That sudden rush of questions about what a guy like that could even be doing here makes him run downstairs without a second thought, rushing past Jack, who gives a nonsensical remark of “No, you little shit! It’s mine!” probably assuming that Hal is about to steal his breakfast, which is evidence that no one should be awake before seven in the morning in his eyes, they start getting paranoid. Although... he could double back...

No! Bad! He was trying to do the good brother thing, for... at least another six hours.

Hal crashes into the front door at top speed anyway, pretty much forcing him onto the path of his original plan, he dashes onto the street (which is steadily filling with people gawking at the car) without regard to the fact that he’s the only thing he's wearing is an odd mash-up of his dad’s old Galaxy Rangers t-shirt and some Flash themed pajama pants.

Wayne’s face shifts in a way that seems oddly like concern, followed by his body shifting in a reflexive attempt to shrug off his coat and hand it to the clearly freezing boy in front of him. Although he seems to think better of it and just steers Hal back into the building with a firm hand on his back.

“You’ll catch your death out here, this isn’t California.”

Hal wants to be indignant about being treated like a little kid, like a little brother maybe, but he doesn’t get to experience people being concerned about him that much, mostly it’s being yelled at for not being a good brother to anyone. So sue him for maybe wanting to bask in the glow of actually being treated with something approaching tenderness for once. It's not that pathetic.

He wracks his brains for something suitable to say instead, something that will sound aloof, and also not humiliate him by revealing just how bad at sounding aloof he actually is.

“Anyway, what sort of person goes to visit someone at seven on a Saturday? Like, Brucie, I’m not sure if you’ve ever been told this, but if its before ten... you could have brought coffee. People need coffee to live.”

“Aren’t you a bit young to be destroying your body?” Bruce says and Hal imitates him, mouthing the words silently, which earns him a very dirty look.

“When I go, it’ll be spectacularly and following a massive wave of bad decisions, but aw you’re worried,” he reaches up to pinch Bruce’s cheek jokingly but only gets his hand knocked right back down. "You're gonna say getting coffee poisoning is a bad decision, aren't you?"

“Idiot,” comes his response, right before a green box gets shoved in his face, it actually takes him a few moments to recognise the battered game console. “Don’t expect people to come chasing after you.”

Bruce turns to leave, and in that moment Hal gets the feeling that if he goes he’ll end up never seeing the billionaire again. He finds that the idea upsets him more than it really should given how little time they’ve known each other for, which is weird, but he decides it’s because it’s fun to poke the bear and see the expressions he makes.

“You-” he starts, and Bruce actually stops. “You might not have had breakfast yet, and Jim says I make good pancakes.”

The lines of the older boy’s face soften slightly. Jackpot.

“He just likes them with orange juice baked into them.” Hal finishes, already smirking a little at his own joke.

* * *

 

  
Bruce left the house several hours later, but still before Hal’s mom got home from work, mostly because he had been cornered by Hal’s younger brother and was the kind of person who listened when a little kid was showing off everything they owned. It had actually been adorable, a smart guy would have snapped a few pictures (for blackmail purposes and/or selling to the tabloids, of course).

Alfred had come in too because, dude, who would leave the guy in the car when it became clear they’d be trapped for ages. But eventually they had left and Hal had sneaked off into the setting sun to make a phone call. Even though he owned a phone of his own (cracked screen and scuffed edges of course), he knew that phoning William in Coast City would eventually be noticed in his bills, and then he'd be in a world of trouble. Hal was oblivious to the figure watching him from a rooftop as he broke into a mad dash.

Rushing down the streets, he was pretty distracted by patting himself on the back for his own skilful escape, so much so that he also didn’t notice the figure in his path until the exact moment that he ended up slamming into them.

The figure, who was wearing a green hoodie that almost entirely covered their face, turned barely an inch to look at him, letting him get a good look at a truly horrifying sight.

“Holy shit, dude, your eyes are oozing black! That’s awesome.”

The whites and the sclerae of the man’s eyes were both pitch black, with the pupils glowing orange. Viscous fluid like oil ran from his tear ducts down his face, and he was looking at Hal with something akin to horror on his face.

“M-Monster!” He cried, digging in the pocket of his hoodie, while Hal... didn’t move, in fact, he looked almost curious to see where this was going.

Unsurprisingly, a knife swung past, right through where the centre of his head had been only moments before. He hadn’t actually dodged it though, a curly haired girl had pushed him out of the way. The blade only grazed his cheek instead of piercing his brain.

“Are you _crazy_ , kid?” She shouted at him, right as she twisted the knife so that it landed in the man’s gut. More of the oil-like substance poured out of the wound. Huh, well that wasn't normal.

Selina grabbed the boy’s hand, dragging him out of the alleyway after her.

The Spectre Killer stood, but didn’t pursue. He had never seen a future so dark, he'd stopped the future deaths of tens of people by this point, even though the police and the news thought he was just insane, he took in a sharp intake of breath. Nothing as bad as _Parallax_. The boy needed to die. It was what the Angel he’d been visited by would have wanted. He'd just never known that he could save the world doing it.

A few hours later Hal and the girl were waiting together in a diner. His Mom had most likely passed out without checking on him, a mistake, and if he got taken home by the cops for being an 11 year old out wandering at midnight not one she was likely to make again. He was savoring an experience that he wasn't likely to get in the future.

“No fear _at all?_ ”

Well Hal would probably feel a little better about it if Selina didn’t sound like she thought that he needed immediate therapy.

“Guess seeing my worst fear happen right in front of me shut down the emotion entirely.”

“That all sounds like some bullshit you just made up,” Hal instantly deflated when she said that, and the older girl continued by giving him some advice.

“Don’t tell Bruce, he might seem smart and capable to you but if he hears about what happened he’s gonna try to get involved. That thing wasn’t human. How’d’ya think that one’s gonna go down?"

He didn't really think that Bruce seemed that capable, he was mostly a sweet kid who'd lived in the lap of luxury his entire life, right? She got up and left before he could voice that opinion though, leaving him to finish the plate of cheesy fries he’d dug through his pockets to buy on his own.

“Looks like my patented ‘Hal Jordan: How to make friends with the opposite sex’ technique failed again.” Hal sighed, apparently oblivious to the fact that he had really just been talking to her and that that really wasn't that much of a 'technique' all things considered.

Only a second later he pulled out his phone. She'd only specified that he couldn't talk to Bruce, but if he didn't talk to anyone he was definitely gonna explode.

* * *

 

Bruce woke up in the early hours of the morning to darkness and a continually vibrating phone.

“Oliver?” He asked the air, Oliver (who never woke up much before noon, and that was when he got to bed at a reasonable time) sending him messages in the early hours of the morning. There was something suspicious about that.

Oh no. That was definitely not about sneaking out to see some movie. Or it could be, that was the way the older billionaire acted sometimes, but he was not getting a good feeling from the messages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you promised to keep GL stuff out of the story but made no such promises about Spectre stuff...  
> I kinda wanted to deal with someone trying to deal out proactive justice from the start, and a lot of why I was keeping from updating was because I wasn't sure if I should cut this arc out entirely, I have up until the second arc written out, so posting schedule should be more regular.  
> Also I finished off watching Constantine and wow I kinda love Jim Corrigan.  
> This arc would be slightly in the background of Season 2 of Gotham but as the varying chapters progress they'll be more involved in the seasons.

**Author's Note:**

> Well the first things first:
> 
> Did you pick up on the baby Greenhand? I'm concerned that I need to tag for that.  
> Ah, Hal Jordan is basically canonically bi at this point (as John Constantine can attest to), and although I know in canon that's probably gonna be something that he figures out as an adult, as a bi person who realized at the age of twelve and is really fed up of the whole "that's too young to get crushes on the same gender uwu" thing that gets shoved down my throat... I'm gonna write him knowing as a kid. Out of the human emotion you call spite.
> 
> A lot of Gotham Academy references btw: There are two Rivera brothers and they're related to Colton. Sybil Silverlock is obviously Olive's mother.
> 
> I don't really like the "Hal is too stupid to know when he should be scared" headcanon and really prefer the "the kind of woman who would force a ten-year-old to promise to never fly even though that's all he's ever wanted to do and disowns him when he breaks that promise was probably emotionally abusive in other ways and that resulted in the child having a messed up relationship with fear" headcanon.


End file.
